


Thank You

by meowgon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Pale Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowgon/pseuds/meowgon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Kanaya meets Karkat in the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank You

**Author's Note:**

> All of my drabble requests turn into huge rambly monstrosities.

For Kanaya, almost everything in the game has been a disappointment.

The debacle with Vriska is at the top of the list, of course. That's the first indignity--and in favor of Tavros, of all the trolls in the world! Vriska has the audacity to ignore her messages in favor of adventuring with the boy, making a mess and ignoring Karkat's orders, while her not-anymore-moirail is left to pick up the slackened rope of responsibility.

Typical. Typical Vriska, typical Kanaya, typical life. What a waste of time.

And then there are her abilities as a 'Sylph of Space,' abilities she expected to become clear quickly once the game was in session. Nothing too showy, but something useful, something _magical_. Instead, she lives without an ounce of mystical proclivity, unable to wield anything other than an impressive array of chainsaws, each more gaudy than the last.

At least her arsenal offers the pleasant catharsis of battle. When the pressure grows too great - the pressure to succeed, to discover her power, to type out and delete another angry message to Vriska - she focuses on grinding for levels and grist. Unlike most of the others, she's never explored violence as an outlet for frustration before. It always seemed pointless and perverse.

Now, when she stands in an empty field of black and red, breath coming in harsh bursts and the hum of her weapon still vibrating in her hands, she reconsiders the validity in it.

Unable to waste time on dwelling, she moves onward and forward, cutting a swath of lesser and greater imps across many lands. Alone. Extracting herself from the daily ins-and-outs of her friends' never-ending squabbles has never felt so good.

Karkat's memos are always there in the background, admonishing, aggressive, assuring in their familiarity. His loud words seem the only constant as she travels, a reminder that the others are still out there, waiting for her to return to them. With each disastrous memo she knows her hands will eventually unsew all the troubles that Karkat cannot untangle, like reducing a poorly-made dress reduced to its separate parts, ready to be remade according to a better pattern. Later, when she's done with her little vacation.

As Karkat's memos grow more rambling, less insistent and more exhausted, less assuring and more worrying, she grows concerned. Maybe he needs help. Karkat, after all, is their leader. He's the only one who can hold their team together, the force that binds them in common alliance. Without him they'd be like... like everyone else, fighting one another for a tiny slice of prestige and power in a cold system. Instead, they turn and listen to his words, despite their disagreements. They have a lot of reasons to listen; because he knows them, the jagged ways they fit together, and his ragged, raging _caring_ , it's special. His determination to take everything about them seriously, to act like their lives, like _they_ matter, it gives them--something. Some something they're missing, but they need. Something important.

Kanaya is certain she is lucky to have Karkat looking out for her. She is just as certain that he needs her to look out for him as well.

\---

Karkat is not a disappointment.

He looks exactly as small as she expected him, as if the weight of the world is pressing persistently into the curve of his shoulders, limiting his growth with a world's supply of gravity. _Being such a patient saint with you nooksniffing morons is a heavy fucking burden_ , she's sure he would say if she voiced her observation. The thought makes her smile.

“I thought you had a companion. Has Terezi departed on some mysterious venture without you, Karkat?”

He turns toward the sound of her voice with a nervous shiver of the shoulders, eyes wide in his face. Apparently he's as used to being alone as she, Terezi long gone. The shadows under his eyes look as if someone has smeared her black lipstick beneath them, and when he flashes his teeth in a half-hearted snarl she can see his lips are dry and cracked. Despite the brief hiss that rises in his throat, she can see his grip on his sickle relax. He's comfortable with her.

Every instinct in her body screams to hug this pathetic creature before her and perhaps to get him some water and a hair brush and send him to his recuperacoon. Instead, she waits quietly for his response, closing the distance between them with efficient strides.

“Fuck mysterious, try the pointless and shitty and probably hallucinatory, considering she's hearing voices again. What're _you_ doing in this shithole?” His eyes never stop darting across the barren white landscape around them, over the mountains of strange sugary cubes and cat-covered teapots (Nepeta's, naturally). Everything about him seems young and haunted and the hugging urges are still powerful, worsening by the minute.

“I am merely here to explore, an activity you yourself are undoubtedly engaging in. Perhaps we could explore together.”

Karkat opens his mouth wide like he's about to protest, her mind is already preparing a rebuttal, ready for anything--but then he stops. Just stops. His shoulders slump even further and her heart hurts a little bit more at the sight.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Somebody who doesn't bitch all the time sounds better than what I usually get.”

“I promise to bitch not a moment,” she says with a smile, stepping forward and laying a hand on his arm gently. After a moment of contact between them, his shoulders raise, and he stands a little taller.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and with that single word she feels she's made a world of difference.


End file.
